08.16.14 NOSA Sprint Car Results

8/17/2014

Thomas Kennedy picks up his 1st career River Cities Speedway victory.

By Mike Spieker

GRAND FORKS, ND (August 16) - Thomas Kennedy has many feature wins at many different tracks to his credit, but there has always been one track that has eluded him of a victory. All that changed Saturday at River Cities Speedway as Kennedy wheeled his way to RydellCars.com Victory Lane for the first time in his career.

The field of 29 NOSA Sprint Cars was trimmed down to the fastest 24 for the 30 lap A-main. Kennedy and Wade Nygaard led the field to the green and Kennedy jumped out to lead the opening lap. Things went south right away for Mark Dobmeier, who accepted the Back Row Challenge for a chance at $3,000, as he took a nasty tumble on lap two; ending his night.

The race resumed and Kennedy jumped back out to the lead. On the third circuit, Kennedy ran the fastest lap of the feature at 10.782 seconds. That put Kennedy in a class of his own as he was the only driver to run a sub-11 second lap and average 100+ miles per hour around the high-banked 3/10th mile bullring. Toward the midway point of the race Kennedy had amassed a whopping four second lead over Dusty Zomer and Casey Mack. The only real challenges for Kennedy came when he was stuck in heavy lapped traffic.

When the flagman displayed the white flag, Kennedy's margin had diminished to just a half second over Dusty Zomer's Buffalo Wild Wings #82, but Kennedy drove his father's familiar #21K nice and smooth around The Bullring one final time and took the checkers for the fourth time this season in NOSA Sprint Car action.